Creative Writing

Creative Writing is the fastest-growing emphasis and minor in the English Department.
If reading novels or poetry, or attending movies or even playing video games, has
expanded the way you see the world, so that you want to have a like effect on those
around you by joining the ranks of your favorite authors--then this is the emphasis/minor
for you. Creative writers are of many types, but all have active and lively imaginations,
seeing the world as a broad expanse of possibilities waiting to be expressed via “the
best words in the best order.”

There can never be too many stories, too many poems, too many beautiful or hilarious
or provocative ways to record, project, and anticipate the world in words. Creative
writing teaches close reading, written and verbal analysis, critical thinking and
problem solving, collaboration, innovation, and organizational and research skills.
It requires attention to and respect for history, humanity, and diverse personalities,
cultures, and communities. It develops empathy and self-awareness as well as other-awareness;
and it makes imperative a deep and (dare we say it?) loving relationship to the pliancy
of language. Best of all, it demands that you engage with and exercise that most basic
human power, your imagination, in such a way that you reach others (yes, we do talk
about the publishing world and the processes that lead to publication) and make the
kind of difference that you’ve experienced yourself, through books.

The varieties of prose and poetry, the applications of dialogue and image, the functions
of metaphor in daily life and in the life of the mind—these are the subject and practice
of this emphasis and minor. To declare Creative Writing your “thing” is to join a
community of like-minded artists learning the surface techniques and deep, human skills
of changing the world through creating literature.

Motivating Questions

What kinds of writing are “creative”?

What techniques and attitudes of mind allow us to successfully reproduce experience
through words that others will read?

What are the differences, in structure, look, and content between the various poetry
and prose forms? Why do they matter?

How do we help each other revise so that our work reaches its greatest potential?
That is, how do we most constructively learn to give and receive feedback on our work?

How do we enter the ranks of published authors?

How can we contribute to the literature of the communities we belong to?

How has the web and digital production of texts changed what it means to compose,
to read, and to be persuasive?

Courses Overview

The introductory creative writing course provides coverage of principles and techniques
that pertain across the genres: imagery; character development, voice, and point of
view; narrative design and pacing; establishment of place and time; and always, always,
the flexibility and versatility of language as your medium. Intermediate courses in
poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction provide safe and exciting spaces to generate
work, as you read, write, and workshop in your preferred (and one other) genre. Two
advanced courses are required, one semester for further generation of work and one
for polishing and preparing for publication. Genre studies courses are taught with
writerly questions in mind, since the more you read in your genre, of course, the
more fully prepared you are to contribute to the ongoing conversation spoken across
centuries and continents by those who write.

Fortunately, too, all Creative Writing minors must take a variety of literature and
language courses, for literature and language are the foundation of all further work.
Even (maybe especially) writers stand on the shoulders of our forebears.